Boralex Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the telephone conference on the financial results of the third quarter of 2024 for Boralex. Please note that all lines are in listening mode only. At the end of the presentation, there will be a question and answer period during which financial analysts, shareholders and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on their phones. Please also note that this conference is recorded. Pour les participants à la webdiffusion, vous pouvez également poser des questions au cours de cette conférence, mais celles-ci obtiendront réponse par courriel après l'appel. Enfin, les représentants des médias qui ont des questions sont invités à contacter directement Camille Laventure, conseillère principale affaires publiques et communications externes, aux coordonnées indiquées à la fin du communiqué trimestriel. J'aimerais maintenant passer la parole à Stéphane Milot, vice-président relations avec les investisseurs de Boralex. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Boralex third quarter of 2024 Financial Results Conference call. Please note that all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session in which financial analysts, shareholders, and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on their telephone. Please also note that the conference is being recorded. For webcast participants, we can also ask questions during the conference, but they will be answered by email after the call. Finally, media representatives are invited to contact Camille Aventure, Senior Advisor, Public Affairs and External Communications. Her contact information is provided at the end of the quarterly press release. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephan Milot, Vice President, Investor Relations for Boralex. Please go ahead.

All right, thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. So, welcome to Baralek's third quarter resolve conference call. So, joining me today on the call, Patrick Dacoste, our president and chief executive officer, Bruno Guilmette, our executive vice president and chief financial officer, and other members of our management and finance teams. So, Mr. Dacoste will begin with comments about market conditions and the highlights of the quarter. Afterwards, Mr. Guilmette will carry on with financial highlights, and then we will be available to answer your questions. As you know during this call, we will discuss historical as well as forward-looking information. When talking about the future, there are a variety of risk factors that have been listed in our different filings with securities regulators, which can materially change our estimated results. So these documents are all available for consultation at cdarplus.ca. In our webcast presentation document, the disclosed results are presented both on a consolidated basis and on a combined basis. When talking about the results, we generally refer to combined numbers, and when referring to cash flow and balance sheet, we generally refer to consolidated numbers. So please note that combined is a non-GAAP financial measure and does not have a standardized meaning under IFRS. So accordingly, combined may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other companies. For more details, see the non-IFRS and other financial measures sections in the MD&A. So the press release, the MD&A, the consolidated financial statements, and a copy of today's presentation are all posted on the Barilex website at barilex.com under the investor section. If you wish to receive a copy of these documents, so please contact me. Mr. Dacaste will now start his comment, Patrick, you can go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, Stéphane, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present our results and accomplishments. During this quarter, The third quarter of 2024, we actively pursued our development and diversification activities in a period affected by adverse weather conditions in Canada and France, which impacted our results. On a year-to-year basis, we observe an improvement in all our financial metrics. We have increased our EBITDA by 7%, our operating income by 15%, and our net earnings by 32% compared to the first nine months of 2023. During the quarter, we continue to make good progress on the construction of our APWIT project in Quebec and our Lime Cane project in Scotland. We are very happy with what our teams have achieved on both sides. These two projects should be commissioned as planned by the end of the year. We have also started the construction of our two storage projects, Eggersville and Tilbury in Ontario. Those projects are anticipated to be commissioned by the end of 2025. Additionally, Our Déné Sud wind project and Oxford storage project are advancing as planned with commissioning scheduled in 2026. Lastly, in North America, we're currently awaiting for the final results of the NYSERDA request for proposals in the New York State, which are expected to be announced soon. In Europe, We are very pleased to announce the acquisition of Salaki Project, a 50 megawatt advanced stage wind project in Scotland. This transaction adds another exciting project to our strong onshore wind portfolio in Scotland and represents a key step toward achieving our goal of strengthening our presence in the strong growth potential market of the United Kingdom. This quarter, we also achieved significant milestones in our customer strategic direction by signing two long-term renewable energy purchase agreements in France with leading industrials companies Nestlé and SyngoBeth. This achievement demonstrates the expertise of the creativity and the creativity of our marketing team to support new clients in their energy transition through tailored solutions. It also shows the growing competitiveness and appeal of renewable energy even for industrial players. In terms of market conditions, demand for renewable energy in our markets continues to be strong fostering a favorable environment for both the operation and the development of our activities. In the United States, we understand that the implications of the elections on the renewable energy sector are a key area of focus. we will continue to develop our pipeline and produce cost-competitive renewable energy in markets driven by increasing demand in clean power and strong support at state level. In Europe, the Labour Party's election in the UK is very promising with several encouraging measures for renewable energy, such as lifting the ban on onshore wind power in England. The government has also announced the creation of the state-owned entity Great British Energy to drive the deployment of clean energy and boost energy independence. I will now rapidly cover the main variances in our portfolio of projects and growth paths. The change in the pipeline was mainly due to the addition of wind, solar and storage projects in Europe and North America in the early stage. The withdrawal of non-strategic solar projects in Scotland. Transition of wind and solar projects through the pipeline to the mid and advanced stages in Europe. In total, our pipeline of early, mid, and advanced stages projects now consists of projects totaling 6.4 gigawatts of wind, solar, and storage projects. In the second quarter, the growth path represents a capacity of 867 megawatts, up 16 megawatts compared to the previous quarter. This increase was mainly attributable to the progression of solar projects in Europe to the secure stage. Our total pipeline of projects in development, secured and under construction now stands at 7.2 gigawatts. Regarding the progress made in our growth and diversification strategies, I already covered the key highlights in the introduction. On the optimization direction, we were pleased to announce the closing of a $95 million financing for the Temiscouata II wind farm in Quebec. This completes my part. I will now let Bruno cover the financial portion in more detail, and we'll be back later for the question period. Bruno?